Had the camera filming the long-running ad campaign been trained on the Boston Red Sox pitcher, he wouldn't have answered, "I'm going to Disney World," but instead said, "I'm hosting the Jake Peavy Charity Golf Classic back in my hometown of Mobile."

The sold-out tournament at Magnolia Grove on Friday dodged the rain for the homecoming of the former St. Paul's baseball star and Mobile BayBears Hall of Famer.

"With the platform we've been given and this being my hometown," Peavy said, "we've done a lot of charity work in the cities I've played in, and you just always want to bring it back to where you're from. This golf course and Mobile have been so receptive, and we're able to raise some money and it all stays here in the community, and, at the end of the day, we raise awareness as well.

"There's so much need in the world, period, today. When we all take time out of our day to help, and little stuff like this, that's fun for us to participate in, can really make a big difference if we all do just a little bit."

The fight against cancer was the focus of this year's tournament. Peavy's grandmother Dama Lolley and former bullpen coach with the San Diego Padres Darrel Akerfelds are two people special to the pitcher who have lost their lives to cancer.

"Last year, my grandmother was alive and got to come out here and take some pictures," Peavy said Friday evening. "But I've had a pitching coach who was like a family member and then my grandmother over the past year passed away with cancer. Just wanted to do something to honor them, to let their legacy live on and for us to be reminded of just how short live is and to enjoy it. What better way to do it than with this money. Do some stuff here with the local cancer patients and research."

Before coming back to Mobile, Peavy was Boston's starting pitcher on Oct. 26 in Game 3 of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Red Sox won the best-of-seven Fall Classic in six games. But had a seventh-game showdown been necessary, it's likely Peavy would have been on the mound for Boston.

"I've played that out in my head," Peavy said of the Game 7 scenario. "I had played the way that game was going to go in my head many, many times. In no way did I want us to lose Game 6. But there was a part of me that was as ready to go as I ever would have been. I would have done everything I could have done in my power that night to win that game."

No one doubts that because of Peavy's reputation as a lion-hearted competitor.

"I think it stems a lot from my father and my two grandfathers and their spirit," Peavy said of how he got that way. "Even my mom has that in her as well, come to think about it. We just have a real competitive nature about us. When we do things, we want to do them, no matter what they are, the best we could ever do them. I was just taught one speed to go. At every level I played, that's what it was all about. When Andy Robbins coached me at St. Paul's, that's what we talked about. We didn't talk about going to the playoffs. We talked about being a state champion, which was the highest level we could achieve. In my last year we were able to achieve that, and that just whets the appetite when you do go on to play professional ball. The end of the road in professional ball is winning the last game you play and being called a world champion.

"I chased that for 12 years in the big leagues, and for the years I was in the minor leagues did the same thing. For that to finally happen this year with the group of guys it happened with, I can't even put into words what it meant to me and my family, how special it was."

When the Red Sox took a 6-1 victory in Game 6, it was the culmination of a dream for Peavy, who won the 2007 Cy Young Award as the National League's best pitcher.

"I think the dream, the fantasy almost, starts when you're a kid in the backyard and you're playing and you put yourself in those World Series situations," he said. "But then it becomes an obtainable goal when you get in professional baseball. You can sense it. Then when you get in the big leagues and establish yourself and you do some stuff personally, you realize that's not what makes the world go around. In the baseball world, it's about a team concept.

"There's nothing you could ever do personally that could be as satisfying as doing the ultimate as a team. We always say it all the time with our land and different stuff that we do with charities: Nothing in this world is worth anything if you can't share it with somebody. If you go to an amusement park alone and ride the funnest rollercoasters in the world, it's not the same experience as if you do it with a couple of friends and you have that memory. That's the way it is in baseball. When you're able to share such a great accomplishment with other guys and your family can be along for the ride, it's truly the most special thing, obviously, in my professional career that I ever thought about happening."